[theme music] Here we go.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I'm going on my most ambitious British adventure yet.

It's going to put a smile on your face.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Meeting some of the finest chefs in the world.

Raymond Blanc.

James.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Cooking way from the far south-- You've got beautiful blue eyes.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): --to the northernmost reaches of the land.

It's a magical experience.

Whoa!

You've got to do this.

It's amazing!

And using some of the best produce you'll find anywhere.

Come on!

It is a spectacular place full of amazing people and amazing food.

This is going to be a bit special.

And some of the places require a little bit more effort to get to.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I'll be traveling by land, air, and sea.

TONY SINGH: Yeah, look.

- Look, dolphins.

TONY SINGH: Dolphins.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): So join me as I explore the British Isles from Islands to Highlands.

[upbeat music] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Today, I've made it to the wild and rugged northeast county of Northumberland, an area of contrasting landscapes, covered in mountains and moorlands stretching to the stunning coastline.

And my travel companion for the day knows the area well, born and bred local and Michelin starred-chef Kenny Atkinson.

Kenny.

Get in.

Sorry, mate.

It takes a while.

It takes a while.

This is a Mini.

KENNY ATKINSON: Did you get lost?

I did get lost, actually.

I'll give you that.

I've got no sat nav in this thing, you see?

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Kenny's amazing career has taken him all over the world, but he's not forgotten his roots.

So I can't think of anybody better to show me around this neck of the woods.

You've got a bit of everything here because a lot of people think sort of-- the northeast stops at Newcastle.

Newcastle, as a city, is a great city.

But past that, you've got some phenomenal coastlines.

100 miles of coastline as well.

Yeah.

JAMES MARTIN: I mean, that must be great for you as a restaurateur to write a menu that you've got such an abundance of great stuff on your doorstep.

KENNY ATKINSON: It is.

A lot of it's now becoming more sustainable.

It's great to support local businesses as well.

So it's great for me as a chef to have this on my doorstep.

What got you started in cooking in the first place?

Your family were into it or?

My family were in the-- the pub trade.

Really?

So I actually fell into cooking by accident.

My uncle said, well, start off in the kitchen, start off dishes, and learn the kitchen side of it.

JAMES MARTIN: Yeah.

And then when you're 18, you can do the course.

OK.

So I started working the kitchens.

I kept picking the food that was coming back.

Not that I was hungry, I was just like-- I just wanted to taste things.

I just fell in love with it, and then that was it.

That was the bug.

And I've never looked back.

JAMES MARTIN: So I've been talking to chefs who I've met along the route.

You see, they take the mick out of me for collecting bits and pieces.

But chefs collect stuff as well.

Oh, they do?

JAMES MARTIN: Yeah, they do.

They hoard stuff.

Your plates.

KENNY ATKINSON: I'm a bit of a hoarder for plates.

I like to buy plates I like to use them, then put them in a stockroom and keep them and-- Just collect plates.

I just love plates.

I think you need to get out more, Kenny.

I think I do need to get out more.

[laughter] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I'll be catching up with Kenny later as there's somewhere I want to go solo for my first cook.

Bordering Scotland and covering the northeastern tip of England, Northumberland stretches south to the city of Newcastle.

Inland, its wild and rugged, while the coast is dominated by wide, sandy beaches.

My first stop is the port of Seahouses to meet fish merchant Patrick Wilkin, who owns a smokehouse called Swallow Fish.

Now, I've been told he has some of the finest crab this county has to offer.

So I can't resist picking some up to cook with.

Hi there, boss.

You all right?

Well, this building is steeped in history, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

How long's this place been going?

They've been smoking since about 1842.

JAMES MARTIN: By the smell of it, the same kiln.

PATRICK WILKIN: It is, yeah.

Exactly the same job, yeah.

JAMES MARTIN: OK.

So-- Nothing's changed.

I'll tell you what, those crabs look good.

Another pound.

JAMES MARTIN: A few crab claws and a few whole crabs.

Hot kipper in a bun.

Is that quite popular?

It is, very popular.

JAMES MARTIN: Can I have a kipper in a bun?

PATRICK WILKIN: Yeah.

- Excellent.

It does smell good in here.

There you go, boss.

- All right, 15.

Thank you, mate.

- Have a beer on me.

- Cheers, thank you.

- Lovely, that.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Fresh ingredients and a cheeky sandwich.

I couldn't be happier.

Kipper in a bun.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And I found the perfect location for my mobile kitchen to cook a delicious seafood dish.

Welcome to the beautiful east coast.

It's spectacular, isn't it?

Look at that.

That's Holy Island.

I'm going to visit that a little bit later.

And I thought I'm going to do a dish that excites me for this one because it uses all the crab, all the lobster from literally over there, out there.

And this recipe comes from Singapore.

So it starts off with some fried garlic, lots and lots of garlic.

And we put it in the oil.

This is just veg oil in here.

This is a garnish bit for the top.

So we're just going to cook that nice and gently so we get these garlic crisps.

And I love this dish.

It comes from a great restaurant.

A brilliant name.

All it says is I've Got Crabs.

That was the name of the restaurant.

I love it.

And I remember you just have it with a bib.

It's one of those amazing dishes that you just want to eat and eat and eat.

Toast off this little bit of garlic.

The temptation is to let it go a little bit too dark.

This is how you want it.

So just take this off.

No more than that.

[blows] Get rid of the sand.

Hot pan on the stove.

Running through the ingredients, I've got some lemongrass, I've got some chili, I've got some ginger, all local to here.

And all we're going to do with this is we're going to thinly slice it.

Now, lemongrass requires you to cut it quite thin.

You can chop it all up into pieces, cut it through the middle.

But with this one, you want to taste everything.

So you take a very, very sharp knife, slice this all through.

So you've got the lemongrass done.

The chili.

Now, this is Singapore chili crab.

So you don't take the seeds out of chili.

So we chop all this lot up, like that.

Keep that separate.

And you can use green.

It's entirely up to you.

And for a little bit of fire, you can put a few of those bird's eye chilis in there as well.

A few little-- a little bird's eye chilies, stalks, the lot.

And then the ginger.

This was also just peeled, and just sliced, really.

That'll do.

Now, to cook this, oil, a little bit of veg oil.

And take your lemongrass, your ginger, straight in, your chili, all in.

[light music] ♪ ♪ This is going to be good.

Now, if you wanted to put onions in there, it's entirely up to you.

I like to just use spring onions for this one.

So I'm going to use a few for the tops as a little garnish as well.

And we'll throw that in there as well.

And that's the great thing about living in this country.

We embrace all these different flavors.

And we still use some of the classics, ketchup.

So this is the sauce that we're making for the crab.

So a whole bottle of ketchup in there.

And then this is where we get the stickiness from it.

I'm going to use some chili jam.

But also, we'll use some sugar in there as well.

A little bit of fish sauce.

And I say a little bit, it's really trial and error with this sort of stuff.

This is your sort of seasoning, your fish sauce and your soy.

You've got to enrich it as well with some of this stuff.

This is hoisin.

And what you want to do is just bring this to the boil now and cook it for a couple of minutes.

So I was going to season this with a bit of salt, but I couldn't resist getting this sort of stuff.

It's literally from Seahouses down there.

It's smoked sea salt.

And they smoked this for five days.

So I thought I'd do this.

Add a little bit of smoky taste to it as well.

That's going in.

Now, this is my favorite ingredient ever, crab.

But these are brown crabs.

These are amazing, literally just from out there.

When I had this dish originally, I had it with sort of a-- the spider crabs.

They call these the vermin of the sea, the spider crabs.

But I call them athletic crabs.

Very expensive and not a lot in it.

These are like stumpy crabs.

Delicious.

And what we do with this is you just crack the claws.

Literally, just crack them, like that.

Throw them in.

Shells, the lot.

These are cooked crab claws, by the way.

And you just pop them in.

Doesn't work with crab sticks.

Not the same.

We've got whole crab as well.

Literally, legs in.

Take the middle out, and we just crack this straight down the middle and throw that in.

Take the whole half shell, crack it down the middle, throw that in.

Lobster.

To hell with the expense!

Throw that in.

Look, in.

Chop this down the middle.

Now, you can, of course, you can do this with shellfish like shrimp, which is really good.

But look at this.

[excited giggling] Mm-mm-mm!

Now we're talking.

And then what I'm going to do, just to serve this, is I'm just going to take some coriander, lightly chopped bit of coriander over the top.

Spring onions, a few bits of them.

Give it a stir.

A touch of fresh lime over the top.

And then, because there's people going to be from here probably watching from a campsite over there on TV, on their holiday thinking, that's not local, it is because I'm going to serve it with this-- stottie cake!

A flat bread, supposed to be sort of soft that they throw it in the bottom of the oven.

But a lovely little piece of bread.

And when you toast this and you have it-- trust me, oh, dear, it's unbelievable.

Now, classically, they have this with pease pudding, which is like a split pea mixed with water, as a sandwich.

That's how they would normally have it, with a bit of ham.

But this to mop up all the other stuff.

You see, this is what happens.

I haven't even started eating it yet.

I'm just cooking it.

And already, it's all over my shirt.

This is why you need a plastic bib.

And just, finally, we're just going to sprinkle the garlic chips on the top.

We've got Holy Island behind me.

We've got heavenly food in front of me.

It's what it is.

It's a proper dish, that.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Singapore-style Northumberland crab complete with stottie cake.

You just can't beat it.

If in doubt, improvise.

[lively tune] ♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): I'm in the glorious county of Northumberland with local lad and celebrated chef Kenny Atkinson.

I'm a bit of a hoarder for plates.

I like to buy plates.

I like to use them, then put them in a stockroom and keep them and-- Just collect plates.

I just love plates.

I think you need to get out more, Kenny.

I think I do need to get out more.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): This area is crammed full of hidden gems.

And we've been told about a local distiller based on an island that you can only get to at low tide.

So this is a bit surreal, isn't it?

[laughs] JAMES MARTIN: It's weird.

You can see where the tide would come right in.

So, yeah, if you're on the island and the tide comes in, you're stuck.

You can't get off until the following morning.

But you can see where it all covers.

Yeah, yeah.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): We're heading to a place called Holy Island, home to St.

Aidan's Winery, where they make Lindisfarne Mead, a fortified wine fermented with water brought up from a well on the estate.

It's so popular, it's become a little bit of a tourist attraction.

We're meeting Director Chris Walwyn-James and Karen Scott, who's one of the managers.

[whimsical melody] See, this is what I like, a shop with a bar, you see?

- Oh, yeah.

- We timed it about right.

James, welcome back.

JAMES MARTIN: How are you doing?

Are you all right?

- Kenny.

KENNY ATKINSON: How are you doing?

JAMES MARTIN: Nice to meet you again.

- Hi.

- Are you all right?

Pleased to meet you.

Tell me about-- tell me about the history of this place, then, because what a history it's got, the island.

Well, it has indeed.

We believe that mead was first produced here on the island in 635 AD, when the-- when Aidan established a monastery here under the patronage of King Oswald.

But, I mean, why-- why mead particularly?

I mean, it's one of the oldest-- it's got to be one of the oldest drinks around, hadn't it?

Well, tradition has it that, of course, alcohol is closely associated with monasteries, as indeed is herbal and medicine Yeah.

And indeed, honey is known for its medicinal qualities.

So when did this place set up?

1962, we began here.

JAMES MARTIN: Right.

So not that long in terms of history.

Not very long.

Because it's not just great drinking as well.

It's great.

I mean, you cook with it-- KENNY ATKINSON: Yeah, we cook a lot of it.

Yeah, it's got such a great flavor for brining, for reducing desserts, and pairing with cheese as well.

CHRIS WALWYN-JAMES: Absolutely.

So can we get to taste a little bit, this?

So this is the classic one, is it?

Yes.

And this is specifically made with blossom honey.

I'll tell you what, it's all right, that.

Oh, it's beautiful, that.

JAMES MARTIN: Eh?

KENNY ATKINSON: Mm.

I'm a little bit disappointed we've had it in this and not one of these.

- [laughs] What do you think?

I was expecting-- I was expecting to see you drink it in one of these as well.

So can we see some being made?

You can, indeed.

Fantastic.

Before you go, can I ask you just to put your coats on?

All right.

I thought that was a bottle you were bringing up then.

OK.

What are you looking at mine for?

That's small, this is XL.

[laughter] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): The mead is fermented right here on the premises.

And they fill around 33,000 bottles a year.

JAMES MARTIN: I reckon you could take over that, Kenny.

Yeah.

Do you want to stamp or fill?

Do you know what?

I'm going to go for the easy one.

I think the stamping's sorted.

- I'm going to fill.

- You're filling?

- I'm on filling.

All right.

OK, don't mess it up.

No, I won't.

I'm having a go, yeah.

[bottles clinking] JAMES MARTIN: That's it.

Me thinks I've got the easy job.

[laughs] You all right there, Kenny?

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, nearly there?

- Nearly there.

There's about another 2,000 bottles here.

So you're not nearly there.

Have you worked in a factory before?

I did, actually.

When I was about 15, I used to wrap Christmas rolls, Christmas paper.

You used to wrap Christmas paper?

Wrap Christmas paper, yeah.

[lively music] ♪ ♪ OK, Kenny, see you in a bit.

[laughs] Leave me to it.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): What a great place.

And it's inspired me to use some delicious mead in my next dish.

Now, not only is this stuff good to drink, but it's also fantastic in a dessert.

And this is kind of like a really simple way of making ice cream.

It's an iced parfait.

We start off with egg yolks.

And what we're going to create is a nice little sabayon.

But we set the sabayon, which is a mixture of egg yolks and sugar, with some gelatine.

So all I've got in here is just some cold water and some leaf gelatine.

And just pop that into the cold water.

I've got in here some egg yolks and sugar.

So caster sugar and egg yolks.

And then what I'm going to do is take some of this mead.

And this is where this honey sort of smell and honey taste, fantastic with this dish.

Take a little bit of the mead.

Pop it over a pan of hot water.

And then what we're creating is a nice little sabayon, which is a lightened mixture of egg yolks and sugar.

And by having it over a pan of hot water like this, just gently simmering away, it ends up thickening up, and you get a lovely light mixture.

But also, the color changes.

You see, you've lost that yellowness of the yolks.

And now it starts to get nice and white and starts to puff up.

And then we can check our gelatine while you're doing that.

So just lift out your gelatine.

Now, the mixture needs to be warm.

Pop the gelatine straight in.

Otherwise, if the mixture is cold when you add the gelatine, you're just going to get it wrapped around the whisk.

And you know when it's ready, when it just leaves sort of a pattern, a bit like when you're creating a little sponge, in the mixture.

So I'm just going to leave that to cool slightly, just to one side.

And then we can turn our attention to the double cream.

And for that, we need to use a little bit of double cream.

And you whip this up to the same texture as what the sabayon is.

And the whole idea of doing so is that when you mix the two ingredients together, it all combines quickly but evenly.

And then what we do with this while it's cooled is you pour this mixture onto the cream.

Like that.

And then quickly just combine this together.

If you get the two textures the same, it mixes as easy as that.

And then what you can do is get yourself a little mould.

I'm going to use these rings, but you could do it in a bowl if you wanted to.

And all we do is we take the mixture and pour this in.

And you can see the texture is lovely and creamy.

Don't worry about a few bits leaking out.

And then we'll take the entire lot and pop it in the freezer.

Now, I'm going to serve with this stuff.

This is a praline.

It's a combination of caramelized sugar and hazelnuts.

So for that, it's really simple.

Starts off with just caster sugar in a pan.

Now, what you're looking for in a nice praline is color, not too dark.

So we've got a nice lovely caramel on there.

Make sure all the little bits of sugar have dissolved.

Like that.

If you worry about it too much, just take it off the heat a little bit, give it a quick stir.

And once you get to that stage and you see all the sugar's all dissolved in this pan now, we can add a combination of nuts or all just one.

I'm just going to use hazelnuts straight in.

And do this on the heat.

Give them a quick stir.

Take it off the heat, like that, and then take the entire lot and pour it onto your tray.

And then what we can do is just allow that to cool.

And this is what we end up with, the cooled mixture.

So once we get to that stage, just to break it all up, give it a whack and then just quickly blitz it in a food mixer.

[mixer whirring] So once you've got it like that-- don't worry about the big bits.

You can fish those out afterwards.

Pop it on there.

Now, I'm going to use some of this amazing mixture to garnish our little ice parfaits.

Now, I've got some that have been in the freezer overnight.

Take the parfait, roll it around in your fingers.

While you're doing that, the warmth just melts the mixture.

And then you can dip the iced parfait in the praline.

And when you lift the whole thing, press it.

It comes off in the little mold.

To garnish with this, I've got two purees in here.

I don't really do fancy sort of stuff.

But this-- I think this deserves it.

In this mixture, I've just got basically a puree of this mead that's just basically in a food processor with some xanthan gum.

Xanthan gum you can buy from the supermarket.

So we're just going to pop that all the way around.

And I've done the same thing, with blackberries.

I've just taken a puree of blackberries, again xanthan gum, and you end up with this puree, like that.

[lively music] ♪ ♪ Take a little bit of blackberry, pop that on there.

A little bit of mint.

What I like about desserts is textures.

And the texture you get from a sorbet with this is amazing.

And there you have it, a mead parfait with blackberry sorbet.

All right, that, innit?

[gentle music] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Today, I'm touring northeast England, the wild coastal county of Northumberland, with local lad and Michelin-starred chef Kenny Atkinson.

It's weird.

You can see where the tide would come right in.

KENNY ATKINSON: If you're on the island and the tide comes in, you're stuck.

You can't get off until the following morning.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): We've sampled some fine local fortified wine.

I'll tell you what, it's all right, that.

Oh, it's beautiful, that.

JAMES MARTIN: Eh?

Mm.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And I've enjoyed a seriously tasty fish sandwich.

Kipper in a bun.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): But now I'm taking a bit of a detour.

Well, quite a big detour as it goes, as I couldn't come to this part of the country without visiting a very special restaurant.

And you know I love a road trip.

Now, just south of Newcastle-- and that's where I'm heading now-- is an amazing restaurant, a two-star Michelin restaurant that if you're on a gastronomic tour of the area, this is a place you have to go visit.

[upbeat music] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): The Raby Hunt in County Durham is owned by award-winning chef James Close.

And his girlfriend Maria is a key part of the operation.

Once inside, you know you're in for a fine dining experience, which is pretty impressive since James only started cooking 10 years ago.

How are you doing, guys?

Are you all right?

- Very good.

- Nice to see you.

Good to see you.

Now, I love this story.

How on Earth did it all start?

So I started being a chef when I was 29.

But before that, all I wanted to do was to be a golf pro.

Unfortunately, when I got to 29, I realized I wasn't good enough.

So I started being a chef.

And then 10 years later, we got two stars.

So to start in a restaurant where I'd never done a main course, I'd never served a dish-- You hadn't served anything?

JAMES CLOSE: Nothing, absolutely nothing.

And so when you started off this, I mean, it was a classic traditional pub.

You were doing steak and chips.

Yeah, we were cooking steak and chips.

We had my mom-- my mom was doing chicken pie with me.

So how did you guys meet?

Well, I came to eat here about six years ago.

It was one of the first Michelin star restaurant experiences.

I already had another job lined down, and I went and worked there.

But as soon as I came back for holidays, James was looking for commis chefs.

So I thought I might as well take a chance.

Well, I'm looking forward to tasting it.

JAMES CLOSE: It's good.

- All right?

OK.

I'll go sit over there, should I?

Yeah, get over there.

Yeah.

[chuckles] ♪ ♪ I'm going to do a couple of Japanese dishes today for James.

The first one is a raw dish, nigiri, which is using the otoro, which is the fatty part of the tuna.

I mean, there's chefs' tables and there's chefs' tables.

But this-- this is pretty special.

That's it.

Very simple, just the tuna, which is like bluefin, on rice.

OK.

♪ ♪ Right, so this is the Japanese two dishes that we're going to do.

This is the first one.

It is nigiri, as they call it in Japan.

Lovely.

Thank you.

You've got to eat it in one.

Just put it in one.

Just stick it in my mouth in one.

Just grip it like this.

Just get out and cook me the next course.

[laughter] In one.

How does he do that?

Now, I don't often say this, best tuna I've ever eaten, ever, ever.

That is fantastic.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): James is known for his food theater.

And I just can't wait for my next course.

[bright music] ♪ ♪ Thank you.

So it's tempura langoustine with some radish.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Man alive.

That is really good, really-- how did he do that?

It's like tempura but prawn cracker.

It's-- it's a really unusual flavor.

But it's so light.

I mean, just look at the color of that.

I know I've been fortunate doing this job to travel all over the world and taste amazing food, and things surprise you.

But this, I've never tasted anything like it.

Really haven't.

JAMES CLOSE: Right, this is Maria's dessert, which is a Brillat-Savarin tart with mango, coconut, passion fruit puree as well.

So everything is about freshness.

But obviously, it's got to look good as well.

So it's a little bit of our version of a Japanese tart.

Very fresh.

♪ ♪ Wow.

So this is a mango tart with coconut ice cream and Brillat-Savarin cheese mousse.

Hope you enjoy it.

And what's this one?

So the skull is yuzu popping candy and sansho pepper.

So it's a bit of spice in there.

Thank you very much.

Well, they do say that eat with your eyes.

But, I mean, just look at these.

It's unbelievable.

Unbelievable.

♪ ♪ This is kind of the trademark for the restaurant, really.

♪ ♪ Cheers.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

JAMES CLOSE: Enjoyed it?

- It's amazing.

Good.

No, I really appreciate you coming in.

Thank you very much.

- It's a pleasure.

Thank you for having me.

It's fantastic.

I'm coming back.

MARIA: Thank you.

JAMES CLOSE: Good.

JAMES MARTIN: Well, there you have it.

It's difficult to describe the food that's served here, to be honest.

The care that's taken, the attention to detail is just unbelievable.

And what a great back story.

I have definitely found my new favorite restaurant in the UK.

It's right here.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Now, I don't often say this, but that was one of the best meals I've ever eaten.

Fine fare doesn't have to be fancy, though, not in my kitchen, as you well know.

Now, I happen to have been cooking quite a long time.

And this is a bold statement.

I'm going to say that this is my favorite dish ever.

Bar none, this is my favorite.

And it's scampi in a basket.

I'm going to bring it up a little bit further to the modern day, and I'm going to do a lovage mayonnaise.

Now, lovage is a herb that's been around for years and years and years, and now sadly in decline.

A bit like the langoustines that we have in this country, really.

We export far too many of them.

But when we do get them, they're amazing in a little batter.

But the first thing we're gonna do is I'm going to create a fabulous little mayonnaise.

And it all starts with this.

This is lovage.

To create this oil out of it-- and the oil is used to make our mayonnaise-- first of all, you've got to blanch it.

So what we do is you just take the lovage straight in, take the stalks off most of it, and pop this straight in the pan.

And what you're doing is blanching it.

So you just-- it wants to be in there for about 10 seconds.

Take it straight out, like that.

And to keep the color, you pop it straight into iced cold water.

Now, if you overcook this or put it in the water for too long, it just goes brown and not very nice.

What the ice water does is just set the color.

And you can see that straight away.

So once you get to that stage, squeeze it.

This is where you need quite a bit of lovage.

I'm using it like spinach, really.

And take the entire lot and stick it in a blender, like that.

A pinch of salt.

And then take an oil that doesn't taste of much, really.

And this is why we use a little bit of this.

This is grapeseed oil, rather than extra virgin olive oil.

It's far, far too strong.

We want to blitz this for about two minutes.

[blender whirring] Now, already, you can see what's happening.

By blanching the lovage, you get this beautiful green color.

[upbeat music] ♪ ♪ So once you've got to that stage, we can then take our mixture and pop it through a cloth over here.

But you pour this into it.

Now, what you want to do is just leave this to gently tick through.

What you don't want to be doing is forcing it through.

If you force it through, you get a cloudy oil.

It's not the same.

So you just leave it to just drip feed through like that.

Just leave it on the side, pop it in the fridge, and just let it drip away to one side.

The mayonnaise is really simple.

We take some egg yolks, about 3 egg yolks.

A little bit of mustard.

I always like to use a touch of Dijon mustard for this.

And then just a tiny bit of white wine vinegar.

Just a touch.

Put the lid on and blitz this.

[blender whirring] And then while you're blending it, we can then pour this green oil into the mixture.

♪ ♪ So what you end up with is this gorgeous, look at this, amazing-colored mayonnaise that tastes fantastic.

Scoop full of the finished mayonnaise.

Amazing color, look.

So we're going to serve this with langoustine.

I'm going to make a simple little batter, really, to go with this.

The batter is just some salt and pepper.

Decent amount of salt.

Some black pepper.

Just some fizzy water.

Just flour and fizzy water, nothing else.

And we need enough fizzy water to create a nice little batter.

I like the simplicity of this.

So a bit of that.

Then we take some of these amazing langoustines.

They are just the best.

They really are the best.

And when you're doing scampi, do it in batches.

So we take and pop it in.

Make the oil nice and hot, straight in there.

And they'll just basically get to the bottom of the fryer and then come back up again when they're ready.

And these want to cook for about two or three minutes.

Now, you do need to make sure the oil is nice and hot.

So this has been set to about 180 degrees because the langoustines are already cooked.

So what you're doing is making sure the batter stays nice and crisp.

This can come out now.

Look at these.

I mean, just look at that!

Look at that!

Touch of salt.

And you've got to serve it in a basket.

♪ ♪ Now, I know what you're thinking, what do I do with this recipe?

Well, you times it by 2 for two.

And that is your lovage mayonnaise.

And I don't often eat on camera, but I am, this time, going to make an exception.

These will be hot.

That's a proper basket of food.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Scampi in a basket with delicious lovage mayonnaise.

It never disappoints.

[lively melody] I'm in Northumberland, taking in all the delights this county has to offer.

It does smell good in here.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): With me on this leg is my mate and Michelin-starred chef Kenny Atkinson.

It's great for me as a chef to have this on my doorstep.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): There are miles of beautiful coastline here.

And seafood is a major industry.

The abundance of fish also attracts other interesting wildlife.

Skipper Dave Gray has been sailing these shores for over 40 years.

DAVE GRAY: Good morning.

KENNY ATKINSON: Good morning.

How are you, sir?

DAVE GRAY: Not so bad.

Good morning.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): And today, he's taking us on a very special bird-watching tour.

[lighthearted music] ♪ ♪ There's nothing better than a leisurely boat trip, you see.

Do you know what it is?

I absolutely love this.

JAMES MARTIN: Eh?

It brings back a lot of memories, this does.

It's a very special part of the world, isn't it, really?

It is.

Do you know what?

I didn't realize how special it was until I moved back a few years ago.

So have you ever been to this island, then?

Never been to this island-- JAMES MARTIN: Never been?

No, I'm looking forward to this.

You're only from over there.

[laughter] JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): We're heading to Coquet Island, home to around 40,000 nesting seabirds, including the beautiful but endangered puffin.

JAMES MARTIN: Never seen a puffin.

Neither have I. Never seen a puffin.

Well, you've never been to the island.

That's the reason why you haven't seen a puffin.

[laughs] ♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN: And there are loads of them.

Look.

It is surreal.

You can actually see them all just sitting on the water.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): As a dedicated bird sanctuary, you can't land on Coquet Island.

But luckily, Skipper Dave knows all about it.

Welcome to Coquet Island.

JAMES MARTIN: How are you doing, Dave?

Good to see you.

Coquet Island belongs to the duke of Northumberland.

The land's leased to the RSPB for the bird sanctuary.

They built the lighthouse.

Its owners leased it to Trinity House.

JAMES MARTIN: I mean, there must be some quite rare birds on the island.

DAVE GRAY: Aye, it's the only place in the British Isles where these rare roseate terns nest and breeds.

JAMES MARTIN: But you can tell how good the quality of the water is and the seafood, everything, because there's also hundreds of seals everywhere.

DAVE GRAY: Oh, aye, the seals.

There must be plenty to keep them going because we've got plenty seals as well.

JAMES MARTIN: Yeah.

Amazing, though.

I've never seen anything like it KENNY ATKINSON: Neither have I. I'm just actually gobsmacked the amount of puffins that are flying around.

[laughter] It's brilliant.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): It was so wonderful to be so close to nature and to see so many rare birds protected.

Sustainability is also a key mantra to the fishing industry here.

75% of fish caught in the UK is exported, putting a huge pressure on stocks in our sea.

The Northumberland Seafood Centre has been set up to help protect endangered species.

Andrew Gooding runs the lobster hatchery, an important project to help ensure future stocks of shellfish for all.

I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Oh, I'm excited for this.

How are you doing?

- All right.

JAMES MARTIN: How are you?

Are you all right?

So explain to us what this place is.

Well, this is the-- the lobster hatchery.

JAMES MARTIN: Yeah.

And what we're about is rearing young lobsters, just to give them a better chance when they get back into the sea.

So the lobsters in this tank are all our buried hens.

Hens because they're female, and buried because they're holding all their eggs under their body.

And they can be holding up to about 20,000 eggs.

At sea, only one of them is likely to make it to be an adult.

What, from 20,000?

From 20,000.

But when you look at how small the larvae are, which are down here-- JAMES MARTIN: So they're mini lobsters?

They're-- they're the mini lobsters.

I mean, anything and everything in the sea can just be hoovering up them by the bucketload.

Yeah.

So where do we go from this stage, then?

You take them from here and put them where?

Yeah, so from here we put them into-- into the next tank.

These will be coming here every day.

So we transfer from the tanks that we just had to look at.

They come in here, and we can feed them once they get into these tanks.

JAMES MARTIN: Why is it circulating?

No matter what we feed them in here, they've got a real penchant for each other.

Cannibalism is our biggest problem in the hatchery.

And trying to control that is one of our main problems.

So the more we can keep the water moving, the less chance they've got of grabbing hold of each other.

It's like a lobster tumble dryer.

It is a bit.

Love it.

ANDREW GOODING: So we move them on to where they're in separate pens from each other.

JAMES MARTIN: So you really do have to keep them separate-- ANDREW GOODING: We really do.

Yeah, so now they're all in separate pens.

And they're getting quite ferocious little beasties now.

KENNY ATKINSON: And how old are these ones, now?

ANDREW GOODING: These are anything from about six weeks upwards.

KENNY ATKINSON: Six weeks.

Yeah.

So all these are a size now that can go back to sea.

What a great idea.

It's fantastic.

JAMES MARTIN: Makes you appreciate them a lot more.

That's something that we really want people to do is appreciate lobsters because it's-- you know, these are something that we're world-renowned for.

JAMES MARTIN: Yeah.

KENNY ATKINSON: Yeah.

So it should be right up there as a-- as a pinnacle of, as a nation, what we celebrate in terms of food.

JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Hats off to the Northumberland Seafood Centre, who are doing so much to ensure healthy stocks of lobsters grow in our seas.

My time, sadly, in Northumberland is nearly up.

And I've loved every minute of touring this area.

But I've got time for one more final cook, and it's a local speciality.

Right, I thought I'd do a fabulous dish, a real classic round here.

We're going to make singing hinnies.

That's what we're going to make.

Hinny's a term of endearment around here.

But the singing bit is the sizzling bit, which we're going to get on there.

But I thought I'd just run through the ingredients first.

Really simple.

It's like a bannock cake, really.

We've got in here some flour.

I've got in here some currant, some mixed peel, sultanas.

It's up to you whatever you put in here.

A little bit of milk, some lemon, and then baking powder, cream of tartar.

But the key to it is this fella over here.

This is the lard and the butter.

I'll get to that in a minute.

So the first thing we do is add our sort of dry ingredients first.

So I've got my baking powder, because it says on the bottom.

A little bit of baking powder in here.

And about half the amount of cream of tartar.

This will give it a little bit of acidity.

Now, these are not necessarily sweet.

You can actually serve them with cheese if you wanted to.

But they'll work if you sprinkle with a bit of sugar, like I'm going to do, serve it with a nice little curd.

And then what we do is we add a pinch of salt and then mix this together.

Now, this is the important bit.

You've got butter, never margarine.

Oh.

And it has to be lard, lard pig fat, all right?

And we mix the two together.

And it's always a good idea just to do this with your fingertips.

And this is where these are always best, made by hand.

If you do these in a machine, you tend to overmix it.

And because of that, you toughen up the gluten in the flour, and they become too tough, too firm.

Now, my granny used to do this with her fingertips and rub in together this butter and lard while she watched an episode of Corrie.

That took about half an hour.

I'll do this in about five minutes.

I've got bigger hands.

Look at the castle.

[gentle music] ♪ ♪ So once we mix this together, it should look like a little crumble topping, really.

So once you get to that stage, we can add the rest of our ingredients.

I've got in here some sultanas, currants, a bit of mixed peel.

It's either-or, or all of them, whatever you want to do, really.

They can all go in.

A little bit of lemon zest.

A little bit of lemon zest and then milk.

And then this is where you just create a little well in the center.

Pop the milk in and mix this in by hand.

And this will all come together like a little simple sort of scone mixture, really, I suppose.

And then we can roll it out.

It's really funny being here, actually, because I'm from further south.

I'm a Southerner up here.

But about 60, 70 miles further south is where most people from up here used to go on holiday down there.

And we used to come up here.

It used to be like swapping houses.

Now, this is the type of mixture that you're looking for.

It's a little bit more sticky than scones.

You see, it's quite tacky, which is just what we want.

And then a bit of flour, just a little bit.

A bit of flour and then just simply roll these out.

I love doing stuff like this, recipes that have been around for years and years and years.

So much history, a bit like the castle behind me with this sort of stuff.

They used to make these for coal miners all around here.

So they would go off to work with them.

You can just imagine going off to work with them warm in their pockets.

And then all we do is just grab a cutter, whatever size you want, really, and just cut these out.

The temptation is to make them too thin.

They want to puff up a little bit.

So cut them into pieces like that.

Now, to cook these, you cook them on a griddle plate or a skillet and get it nice and hot, which this is because this is the crucial part of it.

This is the singing part of the singing hinny.

The singing bit is the sizzle you get from the cooking, where you cook it in a little bit of lard and a little bit of butter.

So in here, we use a combination of the two.

Lard on, and butter on.

And get this nice and hot.

So then we pop these little fellas straight on.

[sizzling] They look pretty good, don't they?

Now, while that's cooking, the temptation is to get this way too hot.

And they burn on the outside and not cook in the center.

So you've got to be really careful with the temperature.

So just leave those cooking away nicely.

Meanwhile, I'm going to serve this.

This isn't traditional.

Sometimes you serve these with cheese as well, which they're ace.

You don't have to sprinkle with sugar.

But I love puddings, as you can tell.

But we're going to use a combination of full fat cream cheese, full fat creme fraiche, full fat lemon curd, put it all together.

That's it.

So you just take the creme fraiche in here, the cream cheese, give this a quick mix together.

Now, if you want to sweeten this up, a sprinkling of sugar.

Or you can use some local honey if you want.

But I'm going to take this with me on my journey.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take this lemon curd, like that, and we're just going to mix it.

Like that.

Because this reminds me of when I was on the seafront on my holiday, ripple ice cream.

We're going to take this, and before we serve it, I'm just going to sprinkle on some sugar over the top.

[lively melody] And then what we do is lift these up and pop them all around there.

And you can see the cream of tartar and the baking powder start to puff up these.

And there you have it, my singing hinny.

Eee!

♪ ♪ JAMES MARTIN (VOICEOVER): Sorry about that.

I just had to.

A sweet treat in honor of glorious Northumberland.

[upbeat music] JAMES MARTIN: Well, what a fantastic day.

KENNY ATKINSON: Unbelievable.

JAMES MARTIN: Thanks for showing me around.

I mean, it's given back 100%, eh?

What an amazing place this is, though.

Do you know what?

It is.

Even though how many times I've been here, I still get breathless when you look at the views.

JAMES MARTIN: You've got literally 100 miles of coastline.

But in amongst that, the most amazing history and castles and scenery.

KENNY ATKINSON: It's unbelievable.

I liked the lobster hatchery.

That was really good.

What a great idea.

It's fantastic.

JAMES MARTIN: Makes you appreciate them a lot more.

- Well, I love the puffins.

- Yeah.

I enjoyed that.

I'm just actually gobsmacked with the amount of puffins that are flying around.

[laughter] It's brilliant.

See?

Don't wait another 40 years to go back.

I won't.

I'm going to promise to take the kids when I get back home.

Good.

Well, you might not get back home if you don't hurry up.

The tide's coming in.

Come on, let's go.

[theme music] ♪ ♪